


Surprise

by theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dating, F/M, Post-War, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs/pseuds/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She is so unpredictable that it doesn't stop surprising him</i>
</p><p>Updated : 11/18/2015 (Sorry that was so not yet done.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> No haters. I'm basically just typing as I go nowadays just for fun.

She is so unpredictable that it doesn't stop surprising him. Maybe that makes him slow. Or stupid. But it doesn't make sense that she could just suddenly make his world _stop_ with every little thing she does.

The first date was pathetic. On his end, anyway. He had barely spoken a word to her but she kept the conversation going like he answered every little thing she told him. He wasn't inexperienced or anything of the sort. It was just that... she was from _Potter's_ lot. They may have let his family off easily but wounds run deep.

_He never feels safe walking out anymore. People don't really hurt them, other than words dripping with poison and having shops refuse to serve them once or twice or close up right in their faces. (It was better than being beaten up in broad daylight as people watch on silently. That happened once and it took months before he could set foot out the manor again.)_

But still, she doesn't seem to be fazed. She thanks him for the dinner she paid her half for when he refuses the cup of tea she had offered. And to his utmost surprise, she stays until he agrees to meet her again next week, this time in a different place. (She say this is because she doesn't like the way _nargles_ had infiltrated their kitchen. He doesn't ask what they are.) He has no choice but to agree when she asks him to please consider her offer as she had more fun than she's had in a long time and she feels as though it's because of him.

He wonders, as she leaves, if his mother even met the girl before setting up the blind date. Maybe not. She must just be glad someone even answered her letters.

He is just surprised she would actually consider a blind date with _him._

The second time, she takes his hand boldly and leads him through the staring crowd, paying them no mind, telling him what she'd done all week.

He is surprised by how warm her hand is in the cold when his hands are freezing despite the dragonhide gloves he had worn and hers was bare, open, smooth and soft. And he is still surprised that she had taken his hand like some old friend. She was friendly, he supposes. But too trusting for her own good. Has she forgotten who he is?

She drags him along, smiling all the way, asking him questions he answers as vaguely as he possibly can. She doesn't mind.

They spend this one eating mooncakes and having hot chocolate. Luna talks about her new white dress, which she has charmed to resemble paint swirling in water. He is more interested than he's supposed to be. Her charm work is obviously brilliant.

When she leaves, paying for the whole bill this time because she invited him, she tracks snow and mud across the wooden floor with her yellow furry snow boots but the owner doesn't even bat an eyelash. They seem friendly, he notices as she waves the staff goodbye. She had once again secured a night with him next week.

 

Fifteen months pass and Draco counts within two hands the times that he doesn't see her every week. She goes on trips abroad for her job. She always manages to bring him back something. Something always surprising and thoughtful.

This time she comes from Sweden and brings him a decorative dagger made from a dragon's tooth. She tells him all about her trip and he listens, making comments and asking short questions every now and then.

By the end of her story on how she accidentally found a manticore cub and helped it back to her mama who tried to rip off Luna's head. She laughs like she's being tickled and ignores the frown on his face.

She pats his hand and smiles, asks is she can have some more gillywater and he gets up and orders her one, preferring to ask the drink from the bar than have waiters ignore him and disappoint her.

He comes back and she says, "you should come with me next time! I'll teach you how to catch merlilies!"

He's never heard of them before but they sound so interesting as she tells him about how they seem like ordinary glowing flowers underneath the water then turn into poisonous, violent jellyfish-like creatures when you come near them.

The look on his face, debating whether to say yes or no because he's never gone abroad without his parents and it sounds like... _fun_ and she would be with him, looks like a 'no' to Luna and she smiles sadly but doesn't bother to ask him more of it. Instead, she steers the conversation to his work before Draco could say he would like to go with her.

 

A couple more weeks later, Draco finds himself letting Luna in his home. Surprise, surprise.

He is a nervous wreck and it shows in his pale skin and the dark bags under his eyes that hadn't been there last week. She makes no mention of it as she hands him the basket of fruits she's brought for him.

Of course he had every right to be worried. She had been kidnapped and tortured right underneath this very manor. Why was he so stupid as to say yes and why could he never say no to her?

She crosses the threshold, looking about like she had never been here before. Maybe she hasn't really seen the whole place. After all, wasn't she dragged in in the middle of the night, surrounded by the dark and was immediately thrown in the dungeons? He swallows the bile as it tries to come up.

"I've always thought your home could use more colors," she tells him as she twirls once, her dress made of flowing chiffon, momentarily catching his eyes. She smiles up to him. "If your parents don't mind, I could help you repaint. I painted my Daddy's and my house with the prettiest colors. It should lighten the mood up here. Don't you think so?"

Sometimes, Draco felt like he was seeing a seven year old kid. And he hated kids. Ungrateful, noisy, rotten and a clear nuisance. Only this time, he didn't mind. He liked her company. Wanted it. _Needed it._ More than he could ever fully admit to himself.

She was waiting for his answer and he looks down at her ruby red shoes, a stark blood red against the dark wooden floorboards of his childhood home. He does not look up.

"Yeah," he manages to get out. "Maybe."

She gives a satisfied nod and turns her back on him, floating on through the halls in the way she does, hands clasped behind her back. He follows her like she was a ghost leading him through his own home, asking about things in ways that he would never have noticed before.

After the tour, they have a quiet dinner alone; his parents stay out of their hair after the introductions and no one mentions the last time she was here. Then Draco takes her to the orchard. What's left of it anyway.

He watches in a trance as she and her namesake light up the whole place in the eerie darkness of the silent night. And later on as he drops her off to her home, she kisses his cheek for the first time and Draco does not sleep that night once more.

A few more weeks pass, he's in her apartment, more tidy he has ever expected, sipping some weird tea the color of yam after having had breakfast for supper.

He's sitting in the low couch just beside her, content as he watches her try to make wineglasses sing the way Hermoine Granger-Weasley had said some muggles do. She's not particularly any good at it, but he likes watching her all the same.

Much later on, she asks something that makes him choke on his tea and the sweetbread she's offered him as she pours more water in some of the glasses she had deemed out of tune.

"Draco, when are you ever going to touch me?"

He catches his breath just in time before she casts him a blank gaze. She was so good at pushing his buttons without ever trying. He doubts he's shown anyone as much as he had done with Luna. Not even in his younger, more foolish days.

She waits on him as he calms himself down enough to lose most of the pink in his face.

He splutters, "I'm not... going to!"

"Why ever not?" Luna asks as though she's genuinely confused. "Don't you like me?"

"What?" Draco looks as confused as she does and he sets the cup down. "Don't be stupid, of course I do!"

Luna tilts her head and blinks owlishly, slow-like and distracting Draco with her long dark lashes. "Then why won't you?"

Draco can feel the red rising in his face again. He moves away from her, standing up. He has to get out of here. Quick.

She catches his wrist, her hold sure and steady and just enough for him to know that she isn't letting go. He doesn't look at her and keep his eyes on the assortment of knickknacks she keeps on the windowsill.

"Why won't you?"

 _Because you can do so much better than me,_ he thinks.

She bristles as if she has heard his thoughts. Knowing Luna, she must have invented something like that by now already. Or she's perhaps some Occlumens expert. Something like that.

"You are not giving me some 'I'm-no-good-for-you' excuse, Draco Malfoy," she flicks his nose and in true Luna Lovegood spirit, bops his head with little force. "You must have forgotten to put on those anti-nargles charm I made for you again, haven't you? No wonder you're full of rubbish in the head."

He opens his mouth to speak but finds nothing to say and so instead he lets out an exasperated sigh. He rubs the bridge of his nose and just slumps his shoulders.

It's not like he hasn't... thought about her that way. But he's known Luna enough to know that her mind has been made up.

"My mother would kill me if I touched you before I married you," he just said to throw her off. Maybe that will make her back off. They weren't even officially dating. So maybe that should knock her down a few notches.

"Alright," she says quietly after a moment.

She lets him go and goes back to her music. He is unsure what to do now.

He decides to stay and sit down again when she talks again.

"So when will the wedding be?"

 

Years later on, she doesn't stop the habit.

One rainy Saturday morning, she slides back in under the covers where he was trying to get more sleep. She wraps an arm around him and cuddles closer to him. He gives a sigh and embraces her, planting a soft kiss on her forehead.

They stay quiet, listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the window, trying to fall asleep again.

And then she murmurs sleepily, "has anyone else had twins in your family, Draco?"


End file.
